ALBANY – New York's lawmakers may miss out on pay hikes in 2020 and 2021 but can still keep earning unlimited amounts of private income, a state judge ruled last week.

Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba of Albany ruled Friday the state's 213 senators and Assembly members can keep the raise they received in January, which bumped their base salary from $79,500 to $110,000 and was their first pay hike in 20 years.

But Ryba's ruling wiped out a soon-to-take-effect limit on outside income, which would have prevented lawmakers from earning more than $18,000 from their private jobs in 2020. The cap was supported by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and good-government advocates to cut down on corruption, but some lawmakers fought in court.

In his State of the State address Jan. 15, Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid out his priorities to address scandals at the state Capitol.
Joseph Spector, Albany Bureau Chief

The pay hike this year put New York's lawmakers in line with California as the highest-paid state legislators in the country.

But the committee also implemented the strict cap on outside pay for New York lawmakers, who had previously been able to earn unlimited amounts of income from their work as lawyers, business owners and other jobs.

At the time, the committee — led by former state Comptroller Carl McCall — argued the cap was needed to cut down on potential conflicts of interest.

Panel exceeded its power

Government Justice Center executive director Cameron Macdonald talks to reporters at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2018, about a lawsuit opposing pay raises for state lawmakers.
Joseph Spector, Albany Bureau Chief

Ryba, however, ruled the compensation committee exceeded its authority by strictly capping lawmakers' outside income. The panel, Ryba wrote, was only legally allowed to determine the lawmakers' pay rate — not their ability to earn private pay.

Her ruling doesn't prevent the committee from reconvening and issuing new pay hikes for lawmakers before January 2020.

The lawsuit was originally filed by a group of plaintiffs represented by the Government Justice Center, a conservative-leaning organization pushing to have the pay raises and the law creating the committee thrown out.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that the committee didn't have the legal authority to implement an outside-pay cap, which also limited the types of jobs and clients lawmakers would have been able to keep.

Eleven Republican state lawmakers — including Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb of Canandaigua, Sen. Thomas O'Mara of Big Flats and Sen. Robert Ortt of North Tonawanda — filed a separate lawsuit in March in an effort to get the outside-pay cap tossed.

The case will likely be decided by New York's upper courts.

Cameron Macdonald, the Government Justice Center's executive director and lead attorney, said the plaintiffs were not satisfied with the ruling and would appeal.

"It was unconstitutional from the beginning, this whole committee idea," McDonald said. "That issue is still out there for appeal."

Speaking to reporters Monday, Cuomo said Ryba's ruling was "confused."

He called on lawmakers to pass a law limiting their outside income to take it out of the judge's hands.

"I think it’s easily remedied legislatively," Cuomo said. "I also think it was a bad decision that will be reversed on appeal."